The Bayou Trilogy: Under the Bright Lights, Muscle for the Wing, and The Ones You Do (34 page)

When the phone rang Wanda jumped up, startled, and looked at Jadick. After another few rings she shook her head in bafflement, and lifted the receiver.

“Oh, hello,” she said.

Jadick went onto the porch. It was beginning to be his favorite spot. He gazed out onto the black bayou and imagined that all the shadows were silhouettes of living things and that all the chirping, buzzing, whirring, splashing sounds were coded human communications used by those silhouettes as they studied him from the bog.

For ten minutes he sat there, hearing Wanda’s side of a crazed conversation, imagining himself to be encircled by a band of enemies who mimicked the natural world precisely.

After she hung up she joined him on the couch.

“Who the hell was that callin’ you at two forty-five
A.M.
?”

“Oh, man,” Wanda said with a long sigh, “it was my friend Hedda. The one I had lunch with. She’s drunk as a lord, man.”

“What’d she call you for?”

“I’m her friend. Her husband’s Shuggie Zeck, you know? She heard about the Rio, Rio deal and she can’t get ahold of him.”

“Uh-huh,” Jadick said. “She thought he’d be here?”

“No, man, no. Christ, I wouldn’t fuck her husband. He’s at a big poker game up the road a ways. At the bathhouse at Holiday Beach. There ain’t a phone out there and she says he’s playin’ for the long green, big money.” Wanda wagged her head thoughtfully. “She’s afraid you all will hit that game, too, and he’ll get hurt.”

“This place is up the road a ways?”

“A mile. Maybe two.”

They sat there silently. The toilet flushed. Bare feet padded in the kitchen. A loud bark wafted over the water. Something splashed. The refrigerator door opened and Cecil said, “Shit, there ain’t nothin’ to eat.”

Jadick said, “Long green, huh?”

“Oh, man, this is too much.”

“Big money, huh?”

“Emil? Oh, man, I feel hinky about this. Really I do.”

“Put on some coffee,” he said. “Quick.”

“Coffee?” she said. “Oh, man, you’re gonna go for it. Man, you’re pushin’ it too hard.”

“Darlin’ girl,” Jadick said harshly, “do you know what the Fates are? Huh? Do you?” Jadick squeezed her knee until she writhed. “Well, I’m out to test ’em.”

There was one light on when Shade walked into his mother’s poolroom. Monique sat on a tall stool near a large red Dr Pepper cooler, vigorously brushing her ankle-length gray hair. In daytime she wore braids circled and pinned up like a crown, but at night it all came down and gave her the appearance of a witch.

“Hey, Ma,” Shade said. How Blanchette and Francois Shade stood leaning against a pool table, rolling the balls against the rails. Shade said, “This better be important, guys. I was
finally
asleep.”

“Son,” Monique said as she continued to brush the yard and a half of her hair, “they didn’t drag you out just to mess with you.”

“Uh-huh,” Shade said. “So, let’s hear it—how is it I’m jammed up?”

“No one said you
are
jammed up,” Francois said. He looked none too thrilled to be out at this hour himself. He was taller than Shade by a few inches and when tired, as now, he slouched. His hair was dark and razor-cut and within a flippant curl or two of being too hip for the D.A.’s office. There was blue stubble on his lean, sanguine face and he wore a plum-colored jogging suit that was unstained by sweat. “We got you out at this hour to tell you that you better watch your step.” Francois shoved the eight ball against the far rail and it banked around the table in an ever widening pattern of caroms. “Rene—I heard something today. Then How called a little while ago and we put it together.”

Shade stood next to the pool table and caught the eight ball as it died against the rail. He hefted the ball, shifting his head from side to side.

“How much do you know?”

“Rene,” How said, “how much do
you
know? Huh? That’s the question that’s got us out of bed.”

With his mother’s brushstrokes rhythmically sounding behind him, the green-shaded light above the table shining on his hand, his hand holding the black ball, his face in shadows, he said, “Enough to take care of my ass. It’s touching that you guys are concerned, but…”

“You ever heard about Captain Bauer and the Carpenter brothers?” Francois asked. “You must’ve eh?”

“Sure. I heard it. I think it’s true, too.”

“Good,” Francois said. “You know who his partner was on that?”

“A cop named Delahoussaye, wasn’t it?”

“That’s what I always heard,” How said.

Francois leaned back on the rail, then rubbed his eyes wearily.

“That’s right,” he said. “Plus Larry Carpenter.”

“Larry Carpenter?” Shade said. “Whatta you talkin’ about? Larry was one of the dead ones.”

“He was the oldest brother. Rene, Larry Carpenter had a bourbon-whipped liver and two daughters and a wife who’d flipped and he’d started a war with Mr. B. that he’d come to realize he just couldn’t win. He set his brothers up for Bauer and Delahoussaye to
arrest
them, but, as you know, funny things happen when you’re in the dark with Karl Bauer.”

Still on her stool, Monique said, “Karl was scary since as long as I recall.” She looked like a veteran necromancer, wreathed by smoke from a long brown cigarette. “He’s been mean ever since pantyhose ruined finger fuckin’.”

“When would that be, Ma?” Shade asked.

“Oh,” she said, “a good while.” Monique wore a white smock and pink fuzzies on her feet. “That was about when I had Tip.”

How Blanchette’s pale face flushed, as it did when people he still thought of as “parents” talked bluntly. Monique Blanqui Shade had caused more blushes than Revlon.

“Frankie,” How said, “is that why Delahoussaye committed suicide?”

“I’m going to answer that for your benefit, Rene. There was some teamwork involved in Delahoussaye’s suicide. Paul Lowell was D.A. way back then, and he told me this: Delahoussaye was talking to somebody
in the state attorney’s office.” Francois then leaned over and punched his index finger at Shade’s chest. “You look like the Delahoussaye in this deal, Rene. If it blows up, man, they’re going to send your ass down for it.”

“Or worse,” Shade said.

“That’s right.”

“And comrade,” How said, “there’s more news. You know Ralph Duroux from Tecumseh Street? Well, he’s got some problems he wants help on. He called me out of bed and tells me Shuggie Zeck had a game knocked over tonight. At a strip joint out there, The Rio, Rio. A man was killed.”

Shade groaned and said, “Oh, that sly shitass.”

“You been with Shuggie all day, ain’t you? It’s you and him on this, right?”

“Yeah, it’s me and him.”

“Watch your ass with him,” Francois said.

“I am.”

“Did he call you?” Blanchette asked. “I mean, this killing was around eleven or so. He call you?”

“No.”

“You’re partners and he didn’t call you? What’s that make you think?”

What it made Shade think was hot things, then cold things, then calm things. He squeezed between his mother and the Dr Pepper cooler and went to the phone. He dialed a number and waited. And waited. After twenty-seven rings he hung up.

He rejoined How and Francois.

“Well, it stinks,” he said. “Shuggie’s snowin’ me, ain’t he? It stinks. He’s not home, either.”

How Blanchette was spread out against the pool table, chewing his lips, using his choppers to delicately skin himself.

“Rene,” he said, “you want I should come with on this? Huh? Don’t trust Shuggie, man. I know him, too, and that’s my advice.”

“No, man, no,” Shade said. “Stay out of it and clean.”

Francois said, “Keep me up to date in case I need to do what I can. Rene, tell How what’s what and I’ll get it from him.”

“Sure, counselor,” Shade said. “You don’t want any calls from me in your phone log.”

Francois smiled.

“Damage control,” he said.

Shade nodded, then walked over to his mother and pecked her on the cheek.

“Time to be hard-nosed,” he said. “Like you raised us.”

“Try not to get caught out in the shit trap,” Francois said. “It’s liable to get deep fast.”

“I hear you. I hear you. I’ll try to keep the Shade name clean so you can run for mayor someday,
Frankie
.”

“Someday might come sooner than you think,” Francois said sharply. “If this thing goes awry but awry
correctly
, it could be pretty
damn
soon. Hear me? And if I was ever to be elected, well, it wouldn’t be the worst thing that ever happened to you two.”

Monique hopped off the stool, her hair hanging down and around her like a witch’s cloak, and rapped her hairbrush on Shade’s back, and when he turned she pointed the ebony-handled boar bristles at him.

“Listen to your brother,” she said. Her arm was fully extended and the brush was aimed between Shade’s eyes. “I wouldn’t tell you to squat when you pee or curtsy to hoodlums or kiss any man’s ass—but son, I’m askin’ you to listen to your brother. It’s not too much to ask of you, is it?”

St. Bruno, being north of the French Triangle but south of the Mason-Dixon, below the deep-freeze belt but above the land of tropical ease, was not naturally endowed with beaches. Therefore, north out of town, past two miles of slushy terrain, cinder-block roadhouses, and whitewashed shacks, one had been made. Golden Rule Creek, a sluggish stream, had been diverted into a long shallow trough, surrounded by trucked-in white sand. The place was called Holiday Beach and, for ten bits a head, the citizenry could recline on sand as alluring as any in the Caribbean, there to sip various fruit-based elixirs, eat grilled prawns, and take bold dives into the unfortunately brown lagoon.

Only one road connected Holiday Beach to the highway, and Officer Tommy Mouton used the spotlight on his squad car to find a place where he could safely back off of it and hide.

“That looks okay,” he said, spotlighting a fairly flat area between two gullies.

“Sure,” Shuggie Zeck said, without bothering to look. “Whatever.”

Mouton backed into the spot, then doused the lights. He was hooked on menthol and lit one of a constant chain of Kools.

“After this I’m the iceman, eh?” he asked. “For sure?”

“I said you would be.” Shuggie had the sawed-off shotgun resting on his lap. His left hand was swollen from contact with his wife’s hard head. His tone of voice was somber. “Quit actin’ like you don’t believe me. When I say it I mean for you to believe it.”

The bright glow of the cigarette lit Mouton’s features expressionistically, like a jack-o’-lantern.

“I can use the money,” he said. “I really can. My old lady’s pregnant again.” Mouton considered himself to be a sharply packaged brand of manhood: slim, square-chinned and dusky, with a go-to-hell moustache and razorblade eyes. “So’s my girl friend. I can
definitely
use the money.” He tossed the butt out the window and immediately lit another. “They cost me, but they’re both fun, you know what I mean?”

“No,” Shuggie said crisply, “I don’t.”

“That’s too bad,” Mouton said. “It’s the one thing I agree with the professors and radicals on, you know. Smash monogamy. It’s more natural to the human animal to smash monogamy. Smash it into pieces—get it? That’s what
they
say. I’m willin’ to go that far with the hippies and the eggheads, but no further. Past that point they’re full of shit.”

Shuggie sat calmly, staring out the window toward the highway, waiting for oncoming headlights. He’d taken a pint of peppermint schnapps from the trunk of his El Dorado, but had yet to break the seal.

“When they come, swing up beside them—fast,” Shuggie said. “No cherrytop, no nothin’.”

“Gotcha,” Mouton responded. “So, Rene Shade ain’t got it in him,
huh? I always heard he was a tough guy. Like Tip. I know Tip from around The Chalk and Stroke years ago. He’s a brute. I always heard Rene was, too, only smaller, weight-wise.”

“He’s not the right man for this,” Shuggie said. “He might go soft when you least expect it. He ain’t got your stones, Tommy.”

“Who does?” Mouton smiled. “Some of those hunchbacks maybe do. Hah, hah. It takes a strong spine to lug around a set of…”

“Shut up, Tommy. I don’t like men who talk about their privates all the time. It’s better if it’s girls talkin’ about a man’s rigging, Tommy. When a man does it it’s like—‘I hear the sizzle, and if you show me the steak I’ll belt you.’ ”

“Wow,” Mouton said. “That’s pretty harsh.” He inhaled some more Kool smoke. “I guess the sixties musta just passed you right by.”

For the next several minutes the men sat quietly, watching lightning bugs and listening to tree frogs. The moon was dropping away and stars paling. A pleasant breeze shook the trees and across the beach a cock mistimed sunrise and began crowing prematurely.

“So,” Mouton said, “the bottom line is, all these punks have got to go.”

Shuggie exhaled wearily. “Tommy, what did I tell you?”

15

T
HERE WAS
a mailbox at the curb atop an ornate piece of black, pseudo-French grillwork, and on the side, in fancy script, it said, The Zecks. Up the short driveway from the street was a refurbished house that had once been a duplex of shotgun apartments. Now the place was nicely painted a shiny yellow, and a broad, rounded, black and white awning spread over the two original doors.

Shade parked a ways down the block, then walked along the drive to the house. Despite the unanswered phone call he thought Shuggie might be at home. He didn’t see the El Dorado on the street but went on up to the house anyway. On the porch, under the awning, he saw that the inside door was open, so he pulled on the screen, and it was unlatched. He let himself in and found himself to be in a wide parlor that had been made by busting down some walls. All walking in here was done on carpet, and he went quietly into the other rooms.

At the kitchen he smelled alcohol and pie. For some reason he wanted his pistol out, and quickly it was. There was a short counter between the kitchen and dining room and he paused at it.

That’s when he heard ice cubes clicking and water dripping. All of the house was in darkness and he was tired enough to suspect himself of hallucinatory vision, but he thought there was someone sitting at the table. The whatever it was he saw seemed to bend forward and make sputtering noises.